The four-episode series, which combs through the trauma and marital abuse that preceded the night a 19-year-old Gallo sliced off her ex-husband John Wayne Bobbitt's penis, debuted last month to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival.

On the day it screened there, Gallo finished interviews and asked where Bellinger and their daughter were. She presumed they'd gone shopping in the snowy Utah ski village. To her shock, Gallo was told they were inside the theater next door watching the series.

"Immediately, my motherly instincts are like, 'Oh my God, protect, protect her,' " says Gallo. She'd shared only limited details with her daughter; when she was about 8, she'd simply said she'd been married before, and she’d been hurt.

But in Utah, Gallo panicked, thinking "she’s too young for this! But then I went and I sat right behind them." Bellinger "was holding her, and she was leaning on his shoulder watching.”

Overwhelmed, Gallo began to cry. Afterward, "when we got into the hotel room, she told me, ‘Mom, I didn’t realize how strong you were.’ I melt(ed). My heart just – she disarmed me completely.”